Growth is growth, after all.
My breath went steady and even, my gaze searching the sand below. Nothing to see. A normal beach with footsteps denting the sand, lots of traffic since the last high tide. The sound of town fading and fading with each step, the ocean hush rising and rising, as if someone had their fingers on two different volume buttons and was adjusting them in time.
Faster then, the flash of images. Ryder’s eyes, the hurt in them, the anger. Mithra’s mocking, his demands as he tried to use our connection against us.
The demon Avnas’ quiet admission of love for Xtelle, accompanied by his pained look as she trotted in with a god in goat form.
More. The needle and ink, the Valkyrie’s knife, Than’s ridiculous spider slippers, and Tala, her serene mischief, his awkwardness.
It all spun together, these last few days, and for a moment, it was like I couldn’t get enough air in my lungs.
All the world was happy—the tea, the treats, children laughing, families walking hand in hand. My sisters were happy, Jean and Hogan building their life out of bright, quirky colors, Myra and Bathin stepping a dance of patience and passion, of darkness and heat.
Then there was me and Ryder. Except when I thought about us, all I saw was a drawer full of notes. An empty bed. And apologies that never turned into changes.
We needed change. We needed to find a way to break Ryder’s connection to Mithra, though I had no idea if it was even possible.
I was on the last turn of the stairs. No more time for moping, no more time for worry. With smooth efficiency, I switched into cop mode and pushed everything else aside to focus on the beach. On the surroundings and possible threats. Jean had said she didn’t think it was a doom twinge, but her grasp on her gift wasn’t as well practiced as Myra’s.
She might be wrong about how bad it was.
The first thing I noticed was the paper scattered in the sand. Just a small piece here and there, caught on the rounded rocks, half buried. They seemed to be in a line, a path of little multicolored bits.
Then the breeze picked up, and the paper stirred. One flipped.
It wasn’t just a piece of paper. It was a paper star.
I slowed, taking in the scatter of white, silver, gold, and pink. All of them stars, all with the words “I love you” written across them in Ryder’s handwriting.
“Wait,” I said, my head spinning and reality doing a poor job of keeping up. “Wait.” Softer this time as I pieced the clues together.
Ryder was doing something romantic. Apologizing? Maybe this was the dinner we’d missed, the time we’d missed.
Or maybe he’d been planning to do something romantic and it had gone wrong.
Jean’s quasi-doom twinge could be about Ryder.
Was he hurt? Was Mithra forcing him to do something against his will? I hadn’t sensed Mithra in town, but I’d had a demon attached to me for weeks and hadn’t known it.
Now I really wanted my gun.
“Uh, Delaney?” Jean said. “You mad?”
“Hold up,” Myra said. “Maybe you should just—”
“Screw this.” I strode through the sand, no sense of subtlety, no worrying for what might be waiting for me once I stomped through paper stars and sand, once I turned that corner enough to finally see the whole, wide beach.
I didn’t even care that I didn’t have a gun. I didn’t need any weapon other than the blood in my veins and the power of this place I called home.
“What in the hell…?” The words died on my lips.
Dozens of driftwood poles were stabbed into the ground to create a natural grove-like design. Instead of branches, bits of twisted wires arched outward. Hanging from each copper and silver wire, strung on silk ribbons, were paper stars.
Hundreds of them stirring on the soft wind.
Distantly, I registered there was music. Noticed, absently, Hatter and Shoe there, playing guitars.
Those things, all taken in a flash, at speed. Those things ticked off a list, as if I were cataloging a crime scene, or setting a place to memory for later investigation.
